


that which passes, that which never fades away

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Bechdel Test Pass, Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Ghosts, Force-Sensitive Jyn Erso, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Force-Sensitive Padmé Amidala, Gen, Lightsabers, Missing Scene, Post-Rogue One, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, RIP Carrie Fisher, Recovery, Rogue One Spoilers, a tribute to Carrie Fisher, if Leia had a heart attack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9089836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Leia Organa has lived many lives, has visited many places, and has learned many things.Scenes from the many years of Leia's existence.





	1. the throne room, Yavin 4

**Author's Note:**

> These bits and pieces are all written in loving memory of, and as a tribute to, Carrie Fisher.

Leia Organa opened her eyes, and when she glanced out the window even the colorful bands of the gas giant that loomed over all of their heads seemed dimmer and duller. 

The whispers of the night had fallen to their lowest ebb. For a moment she was envious of the wildlife that still roamed and ranged around the stones and pavements of the Massassi temple complex, since they were now obeying their instincts to head for their burrows and their lairs and their homes.

They had somewhere to go to. They had somewhere to hide. They had somewhere to stay.

The bed that she lay on bore only a passing resemblance to any idea of comfort; it was more lumps and bumps than anything else, and a shallow groove that ran its length in the middle. Whoever or whatever had been sleeping here before it had been given to her as a bunk had done so for a long time. 

She envied that theoretical being, too.

There was no way for her to get to sleep, and she’d been trying for the past few nights – but every night she’d wake up from dreams of distant screaming. Distant cries for help. Songs and dances, cut off in mid-measure. Flowers and trees and the rolling hills that she remembered from her childhood, flattened and crumbling into dust and ash – 

She wrapped the thin blanket from her bunk around her shoulders, and left the cramped room. Her footsteps echoed in the lonely emptiness of the temple corridors. Everyone else had taken the time to snatch what little sleep could be had after a day of ceremonies, after a day of medals and plaintive mourning songs sung by melancholy drinkers – 

The words of one of those songs rose up again in her mind: _I may not live to tell our story, but I will gladly join the fight._

And she found herself stopping dead in front of a wall scrubbed bare of vines and foliage and creeping plants, a wall that was nearly covered from floor to ceiling in names and flimsis and mementos. Here a patch from a jacket; there a helmet covered in tally marks; here a grainy shot taken from surveillance footage. 

She stepped closer.

Six names in particular, in one corner.

_Jyn Erso. Cassian Andor. Bodhi Rook. Baze Malbus. Chirrut Îmwe. K-2SO._

Below, on a sheet of flimsi, a list of other names. Other lost soldiers.

She was looking at the Rogue One strike team, and the beings who had followed them to Scarif.

She reached out to the wall. Ran her fingertips over the freshly incised names. The names of the ones she couldn’t give medals to.

They would have been the recipients of great honors all around the Alliance, had they made it out – but they hadn’t. That was just the painful truth. It had taken everything they had and every last life of theirs to get the Death Star plans out. It had taken every last sacrifice that they could make.

She let the tears fall, let the tears blur out the names.

It was her task to remember. It was her task to carry the memories of Alderaan – and it was her task to remember Rogue One, too. 

A heavy burden to bear.

She held on to her blanket more tightly, and touched the names again.


	2. family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt comes from JuniorWoofles.

Strange sounds, filtering in around her, as she fought to open her eyes once again. It was like walking in the depths of a Hoth snowstorm, with the sheer force of the howling winds pushing her back three steps for every one that she took. It was like being locked up on the Death Star once again, mind and body still reeling from the innumerable ways in which they had tried to break her. 

They, meaning, the man who had once been her father, and all the beings who had marched in lockstep with him – all of them, and her as their prisoner, driven to obey the whims of the mad Sith who had usurped the power and the authority of the Old Republic, and remade the galaxy in his own twisted and warped image.

Dark thoughts. She clawed for a breath, and then another, and tried to open her eyes.

She was unsuccessful – but she did hear an almost familiar sound. A soothing warble. Not quite a happy sound, but not alarmed, either.

She knew only one astromech droid that would make that sound.

Again Leia tried to open her eyes. Grit in the corners and a terrible weight pulling down the muscles of her face. Still, she needed to see. Growling, quietly, calling on what little of the Force she could reach for now – 

R2-D2. Of course he would be watching over her, even now. 

And his even smaller companion wasn’t really a surprise, any more, either. Rotund white and orange with its optical sensor fixed on her. BB-8 trilled quietly.

“Hello,” she rasped at the two.

Artoo beeped at her, and she wanted to smile because he knew how to reassure her.

But she still needed to ask: “Why am I here?”

“General.” A voice at the door. Turning her head was difficult. She managed it anyway. Poe Dameron, disheveled. Flight suit beyond repair, and that was to say nothing of his lank hair. What had he been doing to himself?

“We were – we were watching over you,” he said, and she was sure there was a tremble in the words. “That night, in the – in the basement. In the tapcafe. You don’t remember?”

Oh.

The phantom sensation of a fist, clutching heavily at her heart. The pain ebbed and flowed and left her in a cold sweat. She remembered thinking that it had been years since anything the tapcafe could have served, over or under the counter, had affected her – and then that she had missed the late-shift meal – that it wasn’t the food that was paining her, but the lack of it and something more – 

Movement around her, and several voices shouting in several languages, before she seemed to run out of breath and then she was being pulled into a deep black.

She came back to herself, in the here and now, to the sounds of other footsteps. More people in the room – that she now knew was the medcenter. There was barely enough space for her cot and the machines that were monitoring her vitals – but by clinging to each other, Poe and Rey and Finn had managed to fit themselves into the corner next to the door. The two droids by her bed, and now there was a warmth in the Force that was coming closer and closer.

“Luke,” she said, and he strode right up to her and wrapped both of his hands around hers.

 _Stay, stay, stay,_ he seemed to be saying into the Force.


	3. Leia and the Force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt comes from Merfilly.

She sat, staring, at the place where only hours before, Luke had been telling her about the ghosts who followed him around. Ghosts that were not terrifying images; rather the opposite, if she had understood him correctly. Ghosts that were benevolent, if a little irreverent. The ghosts of Jedi. Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin Skywalker, who had been her father, before he became Darth Vader.

Luke had taken his X-wing and left, again, saying he was being called back to the temple complex on Yavin 4 – but first he had taken the time to show her how to create a bond in the Force. How to create the link that would allow the two of them to reach each other, no matter where in the galaxy they might be. 

It was good to have him as a brother, she thought. And that was true even with the grief that was still weighing him down, because there was a bright steady flame of determination that still burned within him. “I got it from you,” he’d said, quietly, in the last moments before he’d gotten into his cockpit and fired up the sublight engines. 

She put her hand over her heart, where she was keeping the warmth of his presence, and then she blinked.

Pale images before her. Two women who couldn’t look more wildly different from each other even if they’d tried.

On the left, a woman in rich maroon and gold – who gave off a royal air despite the businesslike blaster that hung from her belt, despite the serviceable pouches secured to her hip. Her intricate braids, draped with fine silvery chains, were styled into a neat bun at the top of her head. 

Something about the woman, who looked as young as Leia still felt sometimes, but who also looked old and weary, made Leia think of crowns and thrones.

“Yes, you would,” the ghostly woman said. “I became a queen at a very young age.”

That caused the woman on the right to smirk, just a little, and just this side of openly offensive. Burns and singe-marks all along the sleeves of her battered jacket; even the just-visible sleeves of her tunic looked like they’d been charred at some point. A dull blue scarf that she’d draped over her head as a makeshift cowl. She carried an assault rifle of some kind, and something about her made Leia think of hidden weapons.

Most startling of all, however, was her necklace: a battered cord from which a brightly-pulsing crystal was suspended.

“Someone I knew once said, the strongest stars have hearts of kyber,” that woman said, with a quiet hitch in her words. “And you’re not a star, but you sort of feel like you’ve got that kind of heart.”

“And why shouldn’t she?” asked the regal-looking woman. “She gets it from – from all of us who loved her.”

“I think you both need to start talking,” Leia said, trying to be respectful. “Because I have no idea who you are.”

“You don’t know me,” the woman in the jacket replied, immediately. “Never got to see you, on Yavin 4. But they were gossiping about you. They said you gave us clearance to leave, when we ran off to Scarif.”

Leia rocked back on her heels. “I do know who you are. Jyn Erso. The Death Star plans – ”

“The Project Stardust plans,” Jyn corrected. “My father named the project. He was the overseer. He did it so he could build in that weakness and give you – us – a chance.”

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Leia said.

“Don’t know about that,” Jyn said. “ _Her_ , on the other hand – ”

And the woman in the rich colors inclined her head, just a little. “Hello, Leia.”

“I’m afraid you have the advantage of me,” Leia said. “You know my name. I don’t know yours.”

The woman smiled, just for a moment. “Now, that might be a little unusual. The galaxy knew me by one name, and my friends by another.”

“Just tell her already,” Jyn said, looking only a little exasperated.

“Very well. I am – I was – Queen Amidala of Naboo. But before I took that position I was Padmé Naberrie – ”

“Mother,” Leia breathed. “You’re our mother.”

“Yes.”

Without consciously willing it, Leia reached out to the ghost of her mother – and touched nothing at all.

Padmé’s face seemed to fall. “I’m not strong enough to be tangible.”

“How are either of you even here at all? How can I even see you?”

“The Force. What else can it be?” Jyn said. “I – I had some kind of sensitivity to it. So did she. And it’s just enough for us to see you. Every now and then.”

Leia thought about that for a moment, hoping they wouldn’t leave in the meantime. “And you’re here because you want me to – learn about the Force.”

“It’s something you can use,” Padmé said, kindly. “You’ll need it to survive. The war’s only just begun. And there’s a price on your head.”

“Bigger than mine ever was,” Jyn muttered, looking grimly amused.

“I can’t do what Luke is trying to do,” Leia said.

“We’re not asking you to do that,” Jyn said. “More like we’re asking you to be prepared.”

“You’re not teaching me.”

“No, we’re not, because we don’t need to,” Padmé said. “You know how to center yourself. You know how to be aware of the world around you. You know how to pay attention to the beings around you. That’s a start.”

“And the Force?”

“Listen for it,” Jyn said. “If there’s some kind of urge pushing you to do something – trust it every once in a while.”

“The same urge I heard on Bespin,” Leia said after a moment.

Padmé smiled.


	4. lightsaber

Skitter and thrum and a long low soothing growl, and Leia was sitting once again in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon – she was helping to fly the damned thing again, why did she still know about the feedback loops in the temperature control panel and the damaged keys on the nav computer console – why were the cushions actually comfortable – why was she here without Han – 

A loud squawk on the comms. “All ships safely away,” Jessika Pava said. 

The X-wing fighter that seemed to hang in space off Leia’s starboard side bore an unusual marking on its scarred scored flank: an image that was supposed to be a star, or a sun, and that was supposed to mean that it had gone dark for just a short time, but was now coming back to life. Was even now reigniting and beginning to shine once again, emitting its light into the bleak space where a First Order superweapon had been created and then destroyed.

Some beings in the Resistance were already starting to refer to that new light in the galaxy as Solo’s Star.

Leia put her hand over her heart. Breathed deeply of the air in these cramped confines. A familiar space. Familiar like something had been cored out of her familiar, familiar like something or someone vital was missing familiar.

“General?” Pava asked.

She blinked, and came back to herself for a moment, and cleared her throat. “Falcon acknowledges. I’ve got the coordinates for the jump. Go on ahead, make sure you’ve got the base patrols up and flying by the time I get there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the reply.

Leia looked around at the empty cockpit – then grasped the levers for hyperspace and pulled.

Outside, the stars flashed into lines flashed into an all-encompassing bright light – then changed, again. Mottled brightness, the sensation of speeding away into nothing.

Next stop: and this would have made her smile, wryly, if only there had been someone there to see it. Dantooine, of all the places. Dantooine once again.

There were traces of other beings in the cockpit. The long hairs that could only have belonged to Chewbacca – the smell of his fur and the plants that he liked to care for, and the heavy reek of the oil that he used to maintain his bowcaster. A hook on the panel next to the door, currently empty, but she knew from personal experience that Rey hung the strap of her long staff on it when she was piloting. The staff that she still carried around everywhere, despite the presence of the lightsaber hilt on her hip.

And speaking of lightsabers.

No one to tell her “no”, now. No one to tell her that what she was about to do was a very bad idea. Exactly the opposite, in fact: and she remembered Poe Dameron holding out a handful of kyber crystals in one heavily gloved hand. Crystals that had come from the Force-sensitive tree that Luke had planted on Yavin 4, all those many years ago.

She’d only had to touch one of them – the largest one – to be nearly overwhelmed by welcoming light and warmth, and she didn’t need any Jedi training to know that she was meant to have that crystal. That she would be needing it.

On the co-pilot’s seat: a bag of parts. Power cells, and all kinds of little circuits, and then there was the hilt to consider – a hilt that she’d cut from this very ship. It had been part of the complex cross-wired systems that kept the Falcon alive and speeding and powerful. The ship that had saved her life countless times – the ship that was hers, for now, only hers. No one else in here. Rey and Finn and Poe were off on a mission, and Chewie and Artoo were sticking close to Luke as she herself had ordered them to. 

Leia pressed her lips together around the name that was stuck in her throat. If only she didn’t have to smell that odd scent of battered leather, of the battery packs that powered a DL-44 heavy blaster. If only she didn’t have that insistent feeling of being in the wrong seat on this ship – she should have been in the co-pilot’s position, or even the gunner’s, and someone else should have been sitting where she was currently fighting off her tears – 

_Han._ She could say his name in her mind, if she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

The Force whispered to her of a lopsided smile. Of hair gone completely silver. Of the multiplication of lines in a beloved face, of the multitude of scars on a well-known frame.

She couldn’t shake the memories away, and gave up on fighting them. 

And she reached for the bag, and for the kyber crystal that was wrapped in a soft cloth in her pocket. Said his name, again, silently, as she fought to reach calm, as she sank into the flow around her: the flow of hyperspace, the flow of the humming engines, the flow of her memories. Victories, and escaping certain death, and stolen quiet moments, and the ecstasy of being with the people to whom she belonged. The people who belonged to her.

Was that a weight on her shoulder? Why did she welcome it, like a warm touch, like a steady presence?

Bits and pieces of metal floating around her. She felt their weights and their presences. Filled them with her memories and her pain and the grim reality of plunging back into war.

Leia breathed, and wept silently into the Force as she poured herself into the working: into the pulse of things coming together, with the kyber crystal at the center of it all. 

“Han,” she said.

And opened her eyes.

Palm up, and the lightsaber that she had just constructed fell gently into place. 

She stroked her fingertip over the button that would activate the blade. There was no way of knowing what that blade’s color would be, not without turning the whole thing on.

She was afraid, and she wasn’t – and that weight was still on her shoulder. 

Han had always touched her like that, always just to let her know that he was there. 

She thought she could hear his voice, whispering: _Punch it._

Just a little pressure – that was all the button needed – 

White light, filling up the cockpit.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a Leia prompt for me, hit me up on tumblr @ [ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/).


End file.
